Macklemore Opens 'Free Palestine' Tour in Dublin With Hozier and Kneecap

Macklemore opened his three-show "Free Palestine" tour in Dublin on Sunday, six weeks after venues removed him from Ed Sheeran's U.S. stadium tour over two words. He dedicated the evening, in his phrasing, to "love and liberation" — and brought out Hozier and Kneecap as surprise guests.

The Dublin date is the first of three. Paris follows on Thursday, London on Friday. All proceeds go to charities supporting Palestine. Macklemore has already donated his $1 million salary from Sheeran's tour to the same cause.

What did Macklemore say on stage?

The Seattle rapper, best known for "Thrift Shop," addressed the controversy directly. "Six weeks ago, it was two words. Two words is all that it took," he told the crowd. "Two words that are rooted in love and liberation. Not against anybody, not divisive. Not a call for hatred. But a call to recognize our shared humanity. Free Palestine. I said free Palestine!"

He continued: "The same thing that I want for all of us, freedom, dignity, the right to exist without fear." He described wanting to raise children "in the homes that we grew up in, not having to prove our humanity to the rest of the world."

Then came the line that carried the night's argument. "Those two words are so threatening to some people," he said. "They would rather silence those two words than confront what they actually mean. Because freedom that requires another person's oppression is not freedom at all."

He referenced footage of the war: "We see parents pulling their children out of the rubble. Families erased." And he framed the concerts themselves as continuation: "Throughout history, music has given people a place to resist, to come together as a collective, to share our grief, to share our stories."

How did the Sheeran tour fallout unfold?

On Sept. 4 and 5, Macklemore opened for Sheeran at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey and said "free Palestine" on stage, delivering political speeches at both shows. "I want those words to be loud and clear, so that people all the way in Gaza to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten about them," he said on Sept. 4.

The speech went viral. Pink criticized him publicly. The Israeli American Council petitioned for his removal, saying: "This was an Ed Sheeran concert — not a political rally, not a protest and not an activist event." The organization argued the question was "where the line should be drawn when an opening act uses a global concert platform to advance a one-sided political agenda."

On Sept. 5, Macklemore repeated the phrase but added that his declaration was "in no way a criticism" of Jewish people. On Sept. 14, he was dropped.

Promoter Messina Touring Group explained the decision: they had been "notified by venues" that "they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the lineup, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans."

In solidarity, Sheeran's other openers — Finneas, Lukas Graham and Aaron Rowe — and most of his backing band left the tour.

What about Kraft and Sheeran?

Macklemore claimed Robert Kraft, owner of Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, refused to let him play and urged other stadium owners to follow suit. Kraft responded by announcing that he and Sheeran would donate $2 million to "aid in the region to fight this humanitarian crisis."

Sheeran posted a lengthy statement insisting the promoter made the call, not him. "Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn't mean I don't have them, and it doesn't mean I don't care," he wrote, adding: "If we only focus on shouting the loudest, nothing will ever change." The statement drew its own backlash.

Then, on Sept. 19 in Philadelphia, Sheeran shifted. "What happened in Israel and at the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7 was horrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain," he said. "What is happening in Gaza is catastrophic and unjustifiable, and disproportionate." He also cited "systemic injustice" unfolding in the West Bank.

Macklemore played a one-off show at Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheatre on October 22. Paris and London will show whether the two words still fill rooms without a stadium headliner above his name on the poster.